The U.S. Treasury Department plans to borrow a record $550 billion in the current quarter, and another $368 billion in the first three months of the New Year – money needed to fund the $700 billion bailout plan the government is using to battle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Wall Street bond traders estimate that the U.S. government will have to borrow a record $1.4 trillion during the current fiscal year – an unprecedented amount of debt that’s nevertheless needed to cover a federal budget deficit that’s expected to approach $1 trillion for the fiscal year, CNNMoney.com reported.

(The government’s fiscal year differs from the calendar year, and actually began Oct. 1. The $700 billion bailout plan was approved by the…

The U.S. government yesterday (Tuesday) announced plans to invest $250 billion, more than a third of the $700 billion congressional bailout allotment, into nine of America’s largest banks in an effort to bolster confidence in the financial system. Similar to steps taken by European governments earlier this week, the government will guarantee new debt and take equity stakes in the participating banks.

U.S. stocks yesterday (Monday) staged their biggest rally since the Great Depression – with the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring an all-time record 936 points – on a Federal Reserve-led push to flood the ailing global financial system with dollars and on a U.S. government plan to buy stakes in banks.

As expected, stocks are charging higher since Wednesday following weeks of protracted selling. That’s not a surprise. I’ve been saying we could see a big rally because the VIX was heavily overbought.

We’ve been warning you since the start that the subprime crisis would have some real staying power.Indeed, every time optimistic prognosticators have predicted an end to this global financial debacle, we’ve had the same response: Don’t you believe it.

Over the past 5 years the welcoming policies towards unknown “foreign” buyers into the Indian stock markets has created a fake bull market in the Indian stock exchanges. The P-Notes or participatory notes were even recognised to be fake by the creators of these instruments: they are called “synthetics”.